532 KECORD OF SCIENCE FOR 1886. 



"As to tbe present position of the science of mind in the British Asso- 

 ciation, it is nowhere. Taken in snatches, it appears in several places ; 

 it would come in under zoology, which embraces all that relates to 

 animals 5 under physiology, in connection with the nervous system and 

 the senses, and it figures still more largely, although in an altogether 

 subordinate and scarcely acknowledged fashion, in the section on an- 

 thropology. Indeed, to exclude it from this section would be impossible ; 

 man is nothing without his mind. Now, while zoology and physiology 

 would keep the study of mind within narrow limits,' there is no such 

 narrowness in the present section. In the ample bosom of anthropology 

 any really valuable contribution to the science of mind should have a 

 natural place. 



" Psychology has now a A'ery large area of neutral (non-controversial) 

 information; it possesses materials gathered by the same methods of 

 rigorous observation and instruction that are followed in the other 

 sciences. The researches of this section exemplify some of these. If 

 these researches are persisted in they will go still further into the heart 

 of psychology as a science and the true course will be to welcome all 

 the new experiments for determining mental facts with precision and to 

 treat psychology as an acknowledged member of the section. To this 

 subdivision would then be brought the researches into the brain and 

 nerves that deal with mental functions; the experiments on the senses 

 having reference to our sensations; the w^hole of the present mathe- 

 matics of man, bodily and mentally; the still more advanced inquiries 

 relating to our intelligence; and the nature of emotion as illustrated 

 by expression in the manner of Darwin's famous treatise. Indeed, if 

 you were to admit such a paper as that contributed by Mr. Spencer to 

 the Anthropological Institute you would commit yourself to a much 

 further raid on the ground of j^sychology than is implied in such an 

 enumeration as the foregoing." 



Experimental psychology is the application of instruments of precis- 

 ion to human thinking and acting, and in the last few years has become 

 one of the most fascinating branches of anthropology. Professor 

 Wundt, in Leipzig, has pursued this study most systematically in a 

 laboratory especially fitted up for the purpose. A quarterly publication, 

 Philosophische Studien, is devoted mainly to publishing the work of 

 this laboratory. 



The studies relate to the powers of the mind in various directions, as 

 memory, judgment, etc., but especially to the re-action time of various 

 operations. Dr. J. M. Cattell, an American student, has examined this 

 class of phenomena in three groups: (1) The re-action time, which is sim- 

 ply the time after the application of a sense stimulus necessary for an 

 individual to record the fact that he has received the serration ; (2) the 

 distinction or perception time, which is theadditionp" lime necessary for 

 liim to api)reciate the nature of the sensation ; c. g., whether a light was 

 red or blue; (3) the choice or will time, which is the additional time 



